'Niceness' is integral part of peace movement

Members of Lepoco attend a peace rally commemorating the bombings of Hiroshima… (Paul Carpenter, The Morning…)

August 28, 2013

In covering the Lehigh-Pocono Committee of Concern's Aug. 7 gathering to commemorate the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, columnist Paul Carpenter deplored what he called the group's "gentle niceness."

Actually it was not hell-raising, but Gandhi's "gentle niceness" (his nonviolence) — combined with shrewd strategizing (boycotts, noncooperation, etc.) — that "drove [his] oppressors crazy." If Gandhi had raised hell, he would have given them two advantages: They could have retaliated with more dreadful violence and at the same time retained their illusion of moral superiority over "terrorists."

Gandhi won India's independence by practicing "gentle niceness" — on steroids. Before staging each of his campaigns, he withdrew for a personal retreat. Through days of meditation he purged from himself all hostility, all desire for revenge against his people's oppressors. He knew that any negative emotions he carried would distract him from his real goal: not vengeance, but liberation for his people. This approach to activism should not be confused with "raising hell."

Yes, people at Lepoco's gathering were gentle; they were nice. They were following a long tradition in the history of peace movements.